


The Other Line

by Giddygeek



Category: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-23
Updated: 2007-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:38:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1639307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Giddygeek/pseuds/Giddygeek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't Perry's fault exactly although, okay, it was Perry's fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other Line

**Author's Note:**

> With many thanks to Shalott for beta!
> 
> Written for Box

 

 

"Perry," Harry said. He was sitting in Perry's chair, at Perry's desk. He was drinking Perry's fucking, what, 800 year old brandy or whatever the fuck it was in the bottle with the gold leaf that he hid in the safe that couldn't even keep Harry out on his worst day ever. " _Perry_."

"Whatever you're doing, stop it," Perry said over the speakerphone. "Whatever is in your hands, put it down. And then don't fucking move. You hear me, Harry? Don't. Move. I'll be there in three minutes."

"She's gone," Harry said, ignoring Perry's orders and drinking right from the bottle, alcohol stinging in the corner of his lips and down his chest. He flopped back in the desk chair and it rolled backwards, which made the room spin like a Ferris wheel, which made Harry think of fairs, which made him think of Harmony, which _fuck_. Harry closed his eyes, wiped his chin, sniffled a little. "She _cut and ran_ , Perry. Why would she _do_ that?"

"Christ, I hate you," Perry said viciously. "Why didn't you go back to New York--why didn't I fire you--no. The question is, why didn't I let someone kill you when I had the chance?"

"You don't hate me," Harry said. " _You_ don't. Harmony said she loved me but the minute the old man died, she was all, 'It's time for me to go home, Harry,' and 'I need a fresh start, Harry,' and 'Get off my leg, Harry.' And now she's _gone_." 

He sniffled again, drank, coughed most of it right back up. While he was busy choking, Perry was cursing and yelling, "Two fucking minutes, idiot! You think you could try to stay alive that long! Jesus!" 

Harry groaned and put his head down on the desk. "Perry," he said, desperately sad, dragging the phone closer so he could roll his cheek up against it, not caring that it was kind of cold and had fifty buttons. 

"I fucking do hate you," Perry said. "In fact, when I get back there, I'm firing you, and I'm kicking you out, and I'm using whatever pathetic sum of money you have in your pitiful checking account to which I have total access because you are stupid and trusting and an idiot and _that's_ why I hate you, why I really do, and I'm buying you a plane ticket to the East Coast. And once you're there you can fuck off, fall into the ocean and die for all I care, because I _hate you_. And Harry?"

Harry wrapped his arms around the phone's base. The speaker was vibrating a little against his cheek, and it was cool, and it was the most comforting thing in the world at that moment, because Harmony had _left_ him, but Perry wouldn't, no matter what he said. Perry was not a cutter and runnerer. Harry patted the phone. "That was a lot of words, Perry," he said, slurring. "And I still don't believe you hate me."

"Yeah, well, whatever," Perry said. "Did you sit still and not get fucking killed by lighting yourself on fire or having a heart attack or falling down the stairs in the past three minutes?"

Harry considered that. The room was spinning crazily but when he lifted his head a little to check, it was still Perry's office, and nothing was on fire, and Harry wasn't dead on the floor, so. "No?"

"Then I fucking win," Perry said. "And I'm here. Hang up the phone."

"Okay," Harry said, and didn't.

The front door slammed. Time had gone all fuzzy, because Harry was listening for Perry's stomping feet--for a guy who was supposed to be light in the loafers, he stomped _a lot_ \--but he didn't hear anything else. Perry just appeared, like magic, like he hadn't bothered with the stairs; he fisted his hand in Harry's hair and pulled his head up and Harry said, surprised, "Perry? When'd you get here?"

"That was some very expensive liquor, Harry," Perry said, fingers tightening, tilting Harry's head far enough back that he was looking up into Perry's upside-down face.

"Hi Perry," he said, strained and slurred. "I was going to put some water in the bottle for you. Makes it last longer. How'd you come home so fast?"

Perry stared down at him and Harry stared up, then Perry heaved a sigh, and then he heaved Harry, pulling him up out of the rolling desk chair and onto his feet. 

"Oww," Harry said, pushing at Perry's hand in his hair. "Oww, Perry. Oww. Haven't I been hurt enough?"

"Oh Jesus," Perry said, and tugged him up the stairs.

"You have the gayest bedroom," Harry said when they were at the top. He swayed, bumped up against the railing; Perry pushed him towards his enormous gay bed with a hand at the small of his back, and Harry collapsed into it, face first with his head on a leopard-print, fuzzy pillow. Maybe it was made of real leopards; he wouldn't put that past Perry. Real leopards he'd killed with his own hands, and skinned with his teeth, and then maybe eaten the hearts or something, that seemed--

"They're from Pottery Barn," Perry said. "Roll over."

Harry got halfway over, then made a distressed sound and flailed his hands; Perry sighed and tugged him the rest of the way around. Harry let his arms flop down and did very little to help when Perry pulled off his shoes and set them on the floor, then roughly worked his arms out of his sweater, pulled that off over his head and went for his jeans. He just groaned every time a new too-warm inch of his skin got bared and dropped back down onto the mattress; the sheets were cool and soft and felt good, and he said, "Perry."

"It is _not_ the end of the world," Perry said, and for a second Harry was confused; what wasn't the end of the world? The feel of Perry's fingers against the back of his thighs as his jeans got tugged away? Because that actually--wasn't so bad. And when Perry's fingers brushed his ankles as he peeled off Harry's socks, it felt pretty good. 

"No, idiot." Perry tugged a sheet over Harry, up to his chest, smoothing it down with a quick, rough pat. Harry forced his eyes open and stared up at the ceiling, blue-white and so far far away, then the mattress dipped and Perry's face was in the way, and Perry said, " _Harmony_." 

Harry blinked. "No," he said slowly. " _Harry_."

"What? No, you fuckhead, Harmony _leaving_. It's not the end of the world."

"She killed my finger," Harry said sadly, waving his hand at Perry. "And my heart. She killed my fucking heart. It _is_ the end of the world. My _finger_ , Perry."

His hand was on Perry's face. He looked at it for a while, his cut off finger all weird against Perry's cheek. He curled his fingers a little, feeling smooth skin higher up, stubble under the dead one; okay, so his heart was thumping in his chest but his finger, Christ, _Harmony_.

Perry sat back, and Harry watched his hand slide down, until his thumb touched the corner of Perry's mouth. 

"The end of the world," Harry said. "That's what this feels like. It does. I should've been the one to run."

Perry stared at him for a long, silent moment, then said, "Maybe you should have," and leaned down.

The first time they'd kissed, in the alley behind the hotel with a corpse at their feet, it had been awful. He'd been fighting Perry, confused, freaked out by pretty much everything. And later, when he'd been trying to give Perry oxygen and gotten back a mouthful of blood, that had pretty much made him want to give up. Just curl into a little ball and go to sleep right there in the street with Perry all big and solid and dead.

But it turned out that Perry's mouth could be soft and that he knew how to kiss without making Harry feel like he was going to suffocate on his tongue--not that he didn't feel like he'd had the air knocked out of him, but it wasn't Perry's _fault_ exactly although, okay, it was Perry's fault.

"Stop talking," Perry pulled back to say, his lips brushing Harry's cheek. "I can't believe you're still talking."

"I _wasn't_ ," Harry said, which was a lie, then he curled his fingers in Perry's hair, and tugged him back for another kiss.

This time, Perry bit his bottom lip, tugged at it, then did things with his tongue that made Harry clutch at him, digging his hands into Perry's hair, groaning. Then Perry sat back again, ignoring Harry's frustrated curses, and put his hand between Harry's thighs, curling long fingers around him.

He raised his eyebrows. "Now, see, this is a problem," he said, squeezing. "I'm not a good man, but I'm not fucking some straight moron who's so drunk he can't even get it up." His hand moved to Harry's hip, palm pressed against him and fingers curled, kneading. "And I'm not going to be some straight, drunk moron's rebound fuck, Harry. Forget it."

"Hey, it's not my fault I can't--fuck off. And anyway, you're not that bad," Harry said. Perry was looking at him with raised eyebrows, dark eyes; he _looked_ bad, but. "I kind of. I've noticed. You're not that bad. You're not really bad at all. You're kind of--"

"I'm not _good_ ," Perry said, and he sat back more, looking disgusted by the very idea, and Harry shook his head and said, "No, no, I didn't say _that_ , I just said I've noticed--"

"Come talk to me when you're not drunk," Perry said, his fingers digging into Harry's hip, making him feel breathless all over again. "I'll fuck you through the floor, Harry. You won't be able to move for a week, and every time you try, you'll think about me, not her. And every time you think about me, you'll want to do it all over again. Okay?"

"Uh," Harry said, licking his lips, watching Perry watch him lick his lips. "Okay."

Perry nodded, then leaned down for one last kiss, biting at Harry's mouth again, making Harry groan. Then he stood, looming over the bed with a serious look on his face, his mouth all wet and frowning, and Harry wanted to pull him down again; fuck Perry's rule against fucking straight, drunk morons anyway. 

"You're very fickle," Perry said. "We'll have to do something about that. And your clothes. And you should stop trusting me. Fuck, this is a bad idea," and he brushed Harry's hair back with his hand, fingers all warm and gentle, then he shook his head and walked away.

Harry listened to Perry stomp down the stairs, and then he snuggled back into Perry's comfortable bed, his soft sheets and furry pillows, and closed his eyes. Perry wasn't wrong, he thought. In fact, Perry was probably really right. He had a good track record with that. 

But. Maybe not this time. Harry thought about those kisses that hadn't made him want to wash out his mouth with six kinds of soap, and Perry's hand on his hip, and Perry's hand on his dick. He thought about Perry rushing home when Harry called him, and the job, the place to stay and everything else, _everything_ else, and he thought that maybe Perry was a little wrong this time. 

And Harry thought that when he woke up, he could probably show Perry some very solid, convincing evidence in their favor, after all.

 


End file.
